Windows 7 was a notable victim of this month’s “update Tuesday“ security patch releases by Microsoft, according to various accounts. Some Windows 7 environments had network sharing issues after applying the new January patches. Others reported getting their Windows 7 installations labeled as “not genuine” due to a Key Management Server (KMS) issue. The problems were chronicled in posts by Born’s Tech and Windows World, a blog series focused on patch and security issues, although it’s not clear how extensively Windows 7 systems were affected by these issues.

The main culprit associated with the problems appears to be January patch KB4480970, a monthly rollup patch for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 systems. This patch was designed to address a PowerShell-remoting security flaw, as well as a speculative execution processor flaw.

Admins reported getting problems connecting to SQL Server and file shares after installing KB4480970, as well as remote access connection problems, according tothis Born’s Tech post. Microsoft’s Knowledge Base article for KB4480970 currently includes an acknowledgment that there is an issue with network interface controllers, which may stop working after this patch is applied for Windows 7 systems. There’s a workaround described for the network interface controller issue.

BACKGROUND INFO on WIN7 issues with JAN-2019 updates

Many corporate users (esp. with local ADMIN authority) are reporting issues with the JAN-2019 Microsoft security updates.